I don't know if there was already a topic about this or not....but, anyways, I bought my 3DS after selling my DSi, i kept the SD card with all the games i downloaded on it, and i was wondering if i can transfer my DSiware games to my 3DS without the system, only the SD card?
or do i need the system to transfer DSiware to the 3DS?

You need the system to transfer the DSiware games to the 3DS not an SD card.

NOOOOOOOO! oh well....there were only a few games that i actually enjoyed...

Actually, if you buy back your DSi and put the SD card in it, you will have all your DSiWare games. Then you can transfer to the 3DS and then resell the DSi. But that would be kind of a waste of money (you know, buying and then selling a DSi just to transfer a few DSiWare games...)

weeeeeeelllll......they kinda' erased the system's data.....so i wouldnt have my games back...

The games are stored on the SD card, so even is the systen's data is erased, the games' data will still be on the SD card. I don't know if you'd still be able to PLAY the games (not very familiar with the way the DSiWare system works). I'm just throwing this out there in case anyone is interested.

haha, okay. :3

I'm pretty sure even if they deleted the games from the system you could transfer them back to the DSi with the SD card, since they're tied to that system. Then you should be able to do the transfer from the DSi to your 3DS.

Well thanks to my son doing this...
If you do a System Format the games on the SD card are no longer recognised on the original DSi... HOWEVER if you go back to the DSi shop on the original system, the games that you had before are still available at no extra cost even though a full system format had been made. Which was good as my son had about £40 worth of DSIware on his system!!!

If only Nintendo didn't lock downloaded games to hardware... It couldn't be more draconian!

On the subject of getting your games back onto the DSi... I can't remember the exact option in the menus, but there is one that erases your shop account, so any games bought are gone for good, even if you copied them onto SD card first. No re-downloading them in the shop, no copying them back off SD card.

You do get warned about this before you erase.

It is an utterly non-sensical system that you can't trade your DSi in to get a 3DS unless the shop'll kindly let you run both systems to do a transfer of the DSiWare as you buy the 3DS. Obviously for anyone before the update, this wasn't an option.

Some facility to "upload" your library of software titles to your Club Nintendo account (removing them from the DSi) and then link your 3DS and re-down load them really should have been implemented.

I've sent a email to nintendo and i'm waiting for a reply...

EDIT:

here is the reply. looks like you can't transfer without the ORIGINAL system...

• If you no longer have access to the original system, no transfer can be completed. Data cannot be transferred to another system over the Internet, using an SD Card, nor can Nintendo complete the transfer for you.
• Because the data transfer occurs via local wireless communication between systems, you will need to have both the original system and the Nintendo 3DS with you to perform the transfer.
• The ability to transfer data from a Nintendo DSi or Nintendo DSi XL to Nintendo 3DS will not be available until a system update currently scheduled for June 6, 2011.

from this page:

as for the 'buy-back' plan, they're supposed to go through with an entire system format before reselling your traded-in system, up to and including deleting all Shop account information. you might get lucky and they didn't delete the Shop info though, you never know — in that case, all you'd have to do is redownload everything from the Shop. you won't be able to re-copy everything over from the SD card until it's already been redownloaded to the system, that way the system knows you've already had the game downloaded before and the ones you're copying over from the SD card are yours, not someone else's — if that makes any sense. :3

whatever happens, good luck to you, Akatsuki. I get the feeling they're just going to quote that same FAQ article at you, though